By Debbie Schlussel
A friend at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent me this press release, which contains a transcript of remarks by President Bush, delivered yesterday afternoon at the Department of Homeland Security. He details his DHS budget priorities
The press release is frightening for two reasons:
1) It does NOT mention ICE, the biggest and most important sub-agency within DHS. The President speaking on his DHS priorities and not even mentioning ICE, is malpractice. Clearly, enforcing immigration laws is even less important to him than we’d thought–so unimportant that ICE is NOT even mentioned once in discussing his overview of DHS. Hint, hint, ICE Princess!
2) It repeats the President’s bone-headed view that amnesty will solve our border problems and make jobs easier for Border Patrol agents. Riiiiiiight.

Illegal Aliens (& Bush) Laughing @ The ICE Princess, Julie L. Myers

Bush claims:

I firmly believe that in order for your Border Patrol agents to be able to do their job, we need a guest worker program so that people don’t have to sneak in our country, and therefore, we can really enable your good folks to be able to focus on terrorism, drug runners, gun runners.

—–Original Message—–
From: ICE Broadcast
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 12:51 PM
Subject: REMARKS BY PRESIDENT BUSH – HOMELAND SECURITY PRIORITIES BRIEFING
Importance: High
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release February 8, 2007
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AFTER BRIEFING ON
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY PRIORITIES
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C.
4:20 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for the hospitality. I appreciate you inviting me over to hear what has been a substantive briefing by your different operating entities.
First of all, I’m very proud of the hard work of the men and women of the Homeland Security Department. This vital department is actively engaged in the war on terror. We are still a nation at risk. Part of our strategy, of course, is to stay on the offense against terrorists who would do us harm. In other words, it is important to defeat them overseas so we never have to face them here. Nevertheless, we recognize that we’ve got to be fully prepared here at the homeland.
Part of that preparation requires a robust budget. We submitted the budget, you testified on the budget. It’s about an 8 percent increase in the budget of the Homeland Security Department.
This department works to secure our borders. I appreciate very much, Ralph, you and your department’s hard work of doing a difficult job, and that is doing what the American people expect and that is to have secure borders. But we’re making good progress. We’re modernizing a border that needed to be modernized, whether it be through fencing or the different types of high-tech investments.I firmly believe that in order for your Border Patrol agents to be able to do their job, we need a guest worker program so that people don’t have to sneak in our country, and therefore, we can really enable your good folks to be able to focus on terrorism, drug runners, gun runners.
I appreciate so very much the fact that we’ve got a wise strategy to effect the security of our ports and cargo. We’ve got a lot of good people working hard overseas. In other words, we’re inspecting cargo before it leaves a port — foreign port — so that the first line of defense is away from our shores, or away from our ports. And we’ve got a lot of good people working hard to achieve that.
I appreciate so very much the effort of TSA. You’ve got a hard job. It’s a job that really was a response to 9/11, and that is we don’t want people getting on our airplanes that will terrorize our fellow citizens again. I fully recognize that there are thousands of hardworking people that are trying to do their best to, on the one hand, accommodate our fellow citizens as they travel; on the other hand, protect our country from attack.
We also talked about the need to have effective response if there is a emergency, if there is a catastrophe. And one agency that has been under fire and that needed to be reorganized was FEMA, and I asked David Paulison to do just that. We took the lessons learned from Katrina and applied it to this vital agency. And this agency was recently tested through the tornadoes there in central Florida . And I want to thank you, Dave, and your team for a quick response to help the poor citizens who were affected by that natural disaster.
The Department of Homeland Security was initially melded together by organizations that tended to be stove-piped — independently run organizations that we felt needed to be brought under the central planning, the central organizing principle of a single department. The organization of such a vast enterprise has been difficult and complicated; nevertheless, there is noticeable and substantial and measurable progress.
And I appreciate all the hardworking folks for putting together an institute, part of our government, all aiming to protect the American people.
And so, Secretary, thank you for the invitation. I appreciate the hard work of the people of this department. I oftentimes say to the American people that you can go about your business, you can run your enterprises, you can send your children to school, knowing full well that there are thousands of our fellow citizens who work every day, 24 hours, to help you by protecting this homeland. And this is where it all starts. And I thank you for your hard work.
Thank you.
END 4:25 P.M. EST

17 Responses

Seizer, your an ignorant slut! The President is none of those. He should, however be impeached for ignoring one of the most pressing issues of our time which is border security. The USA will be gone soon due to it’s terrible economic and tax policies, it lack of security and it lack of intestinal fortitude in prosecuting it’s enemies here at home(this means all like you Seizer). You’ll be happy until the croc decides to eat you as well. Cheers!

Dear Debbie;
Guest worker program my ass. That’s one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. I’m trying to figure out why Mr. Bush is being such a jag-off about this. Is he having sex with the president of Mexico? Does the president of Mexico have pictures of Mr. Bush fornicating with a pumkin?
All kidding aside, perhaps Mr. Bush is fawning on the Spanish in order to procure future votes for the Republician Party. In other words, acting like Democrat
Sincerely;
EJO

Does Bush even know where the border is? Does he realize that Mexico is a seperate country? Does he realize borders define what a country is?
Yea….he has things under control. I lost confidence in him a long time ago. We should have realized this on 9-11 when Bush was in his bunker and Rudy was the defacto president.

Debbie:
It is beyond scary at this point.
I am telling you and the American people that many ICE Special Agents in offices around the country have either shut down or are fleeing the agency like bees from a hive (either retirement, transfers to other 1811/1801 series jobs or outright resignation from Federal employment). I can report from my office in a major southern tier city that a fatal malaise has set in, fueled by the lack of clear mission, lack of funding and the general disrespect shown to what was a very seasoned cadre of investigatior just slightly less than 4 years ago.
I think that, as far as criminal investigations go – immigration or customs – those are all but D.O.A., like poor Anna Nicole Smith. The job of apprehending, incarcerating and deporting immigration (hence, administrative) violators can easily be handled by 1801 DRO officers; you don’t need Special Agents to do that. As for me, my exit from ICE is being held up by the continuing resolution; I sincerely hope funding for my (hopefully) next employer will come very soon.

http://www.spp.gov. Now wih the Dems in office? Bush’s GWP will go as plan. Twelve years in Congress, CAFTA, NAFTA and GWP?
Here is one last chance to stop this:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.CON.RES.40:
We wasted our time yelling back and forth and if we don’t do somethig now? Deb, I hope you have a gun and are willing to shoot to kill to protect your sovereignty. Do you? Do any of us?

“I firmly believe that in order for your Border Patrol agents to be able to do their job, we need a guest worker program so that people don’t have to sneak in our country, and therefore, we can really enable your good folks to be able to focus on terrorism, drug runners, gun runners.”
Translation:
I firmly believe that in order for your Border Patrol agents to be prevented from doing their jobs, we need a serf worker program so that greedy employers don’t have to pay a legally competitive wage in our country, and therefore, we can really enable my campaign contributors to be able to focus on making a lot of money for themselves and cutting wages for American workers and screwing American tax payers.

I remember talking with a border patrol supervisor in Texas once, when he was off-duty. The guy described an unbelievable shortage of resources to control the border. I was floored to hear about the situation first hand and would recommend anyone who gets the chance to, to ask an off-duty border patrol agent sometime.

ICE is meant to fail. That is why DRO is taking over the apprehension of criminal alien program (ACAP).
No criminal worksite enforcement cases are being pursued. Simple (but effective) worksite I-9 audits are prohibited. Those cases already in existence are being controlled by Headquarters and “cranked up” to be financially prohibited (to show that worksite enforcement is not viable).
Worksite Enforcement is claimed to be a “High Priority” but the percentage of hours attributed to such cases is mimimal.
Supervisors are discouraged from doing any real interior enforcement work.
I am ashamed of my agency and am counting the days before I can retire (but I am still trying to do my job).
Garcia was given the job to dismantle INS enforcement. He was too incompetent to do a complete job, so Julie was sent in as a “finisher.”
Like Garcia, she will get a choice DOJ job just like her husband.

ICE was created to address the problem of the broken INS not the illegal immigration problem. As far as I can remember the INS was always been a service oriented entity not enforcement. As a young Border Patrol agent, I witnessed the dregs and flunkies going to the INS. For example if someone failed the Border Patrol Academy or either the 6 month or 10 month test, they could slide into a job as an immigration inspector or INS agent. The INS rarely got the cream of the crop, had poor leadership and was ineffective. This was the broken INS. Customs on the other hand was enforcement minded and attracted bright young agents because of the variety of laws that were enforced. Someone in their great wisdom decided that after 9/11 INS was broken(hello!) and should be repaired. The INS was dissolved and what remained was merged with Customs. Instead of adopting Customs policies and procedures, ICE was created and adopted the broken INS system. Bonner had the balls to keep CBP(Customs and Border Protection) under the old Customs system. Now we have ICE, a bastard agency that was lowered to the lowest common denominator(the INS). There is no specific mission. Good agents are pulled off of National Security cases to go round up illegal aliens when Detention and Removal officers should be performing this function. I keep holding out hope that one day we will go back to the way it used to be. DHS and ICE is a joke! Hell, I’d vote for a democrat if they promised to dissolve ICE(no pun intended).
tdyinhell

tdyinhell is correct. What he fails to mention is that a premier agency, Border Patrol, has gone to hell with the creation of DHS. Border Patrol management, neutered under INS, is now totally eviscerated under a Customs-run/oriented agency (CBP). Most of them know nothing about border enforcement outside the ports of entry and face little danger at the ports.
That said, the Bush administration should have moved long ago to reclassify as sworn officers the Customs and INS inspectors working at the ports. I have friends in Customs who are hesitant to pull their weapons on drug smugglers for fear that Customs management would discipline them.
The fat cat hacks have no clue how to secure this country.

TDYINHELL I couldnt have said it better, I never saw a more incompetent agency then the INS. The more I observe their work ethics the more I understand how this country has gone to hell.And then to give Customs agents and Inspectors over to these scabs its no wonder why everybody is leaving DHS.That is the reason plain and simple,no need for a multibillion dollar Boing survey to figure that out either.

AMEN AND KUDOS TO THE LAST 3 OR 4 POSTS RE. THIS MATTER.
Many Americans don’t realize that, despite its long-standing position within legacy INS, the Border Patrol did NOT consider themselves part of INS. I dare say, in a respectful sort of way in derference to my “border rat” brethren, that INS administrators saw BP as a “rouge element” within INS that basically marched to its own drum. In fact, the Chief Patrol Agent of the United States often had the White House’s ear more than any INS administrator ever could (this was also true of the Assistant Commissioner, OI of legacy Customs, whose division, prior to this whole merger BS, was putting up UNBELIEVABLE stats with complex, long-term investigations that originated with border seizures by OFO Inspectors).
Now, BP is just another cog in the wheel at CBP, and OI is a bastard child at ICE (DRO is the 800 pound gorilla there). So, 2 entities, formerly very proud and PRODUCTIVE, have been castrated and sacrified on the altar of political expediency, and now, absolutely NOTHING gets done, except to put BPAs Ramos and Compean in prison while the guilty smuggler goes free, and OI Special Agents twiddle their thumbs trying to chase after 12 million illegals while drug smugglers, money launderers and terrorists enjoy free reign in America.

I can’t take this anymore. Every time I look up, a Legacy Customs puke is crying about thier “lack of standing” in ICE when they’re running the show !!!! Almost all the top brass in ICE are legacy CUSTOMS!!!!If its screwed up, then maybe its because legacy customs agents can only handle one case at a time, whereas legacy INS inspectors, Deportation Officers and to a lesser extent Special Agents could handle up to sixty each !!!!. Of course DRO can handle the processing of illegal aliens, I mean there are less than 700 deportation officers NATIONWIDE at any given point, so sure, we can handle a backlog of 15 MILLION.
The reality is that most DRO officers are working 60-70 hours a week conducting fugitive operations, Criminal Alien Apprehension Program cases (criminal aliens encountered in federal, state and local prisons), detained alien docket work, criminla prosecutions of re-entry cases, overseas escorts, etc, etc,.
Here’s some more reality for you, since the “merger” of Customs and INS at the ports of entry, legacy CUSTOMS has ridden roughshod over everyone and is now more concerned with “customer service” than law enforcement. Most legacy Customs folks simply don’t get it and they never will.
Breaking up the INS was the right move because of the dual role of the former agency and its intertwined chain of command that placed “benefit granters” in charge of enforcement personnel. However, merging Customs and INS was a huge mistake. Unlike my colleagues who are busy whinning, crabbing, and stealing oxygen until they retire, I’m working to do the best I can, as are all the dedicated folks I’m lucky to have around. by the way, I’ve got 16 years in and if God allows it, I’ll do 17 more before they force me out !!!!

2-decades in several domestic offices, to include overseas postings, have shown me that there has always been 15-20% of SAs that have carried the bulk of the investigative workload with the rest so much flotsam, waiting for a neat case to drop in their laps.
As for those grousing abut the merger, just remember the days when USCS was the largest recipient of most BP-flunkie that didn’t make it past the post-academy.
The DRO “800-lb gorilla” should be god-send to all of OI since it will help them, to a certain degree , to concentrate on “complex investigations”, to include immig cases since, as most here agree, these should be slam-dunk due to their relative ease compared with the “count ’em in one hand” Nat Sec or WMD cases.

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